Drew Barrymore opened up in a recent interview about the dark days following her 2016 divorce from art advisor Will Kopelman, and admitted she relapsed into her drinking addiction as a way to numb the pain.
“There was no scandal. Nothing went wrong, which is cleaner, but makes it harder and more confusing because there isn’t The Thing to point to,” Barrymore told People of her marital breakdown in the interview published Tuesday. “We tried so hard to make it work.”
Barrymore said she turned to alcohol when the reality of her divorce seemingly became too much to bear. “It was just trying to numb the pain and feel good—and alcohol totally did that for me,” she told the outlet.
Drew Barrymore says post-divorce years were ‘cripplingly difficult’ https://t.co/QxneLstFsS
— Independent Lifestyle (@IndyLife) December 27, 2022
Barrymore quoted a friend who told her “Divorce is the death of a dream,” and agreed with the description. “That’s exactly what it feels like, something so final you can’t get it back,” she told People.
Her daughters, Olive and Frankie, were aged two and three at the time of her divorce from Kopelman. Barrymore told People she made the difficult decision to leave California and move to New York to be closer to her ex-husband’s family after the couple split. Barrymore revealed things became “cripplingly difficult” as winter set upon the city, and the actress said that was when her dark days began.
“It just took me down. There are times where you can look at someone you think is a strong person and see them so broken and go, ‘How the f*ck did they get there?’ And I was that person. I broke,” she told People.
Barrymore said she coped with the aftermath of the divorce by drinking, and after winning a battle with addiction in her youth, she was very aware of the warning signs that were once again creeping into her life. (RELATED: ‘A Tragic Mistake’: Sylvester Stallone Opens Up About Nearly Getting Divorced)
EXCLUSIVE: Inside Drew Barrymore’s divorce: ‘This wasn’t an overnight decision’ https://t.co/KlrExRBuJG pic.twitter.com/OiO3Iold9f
— People (@people) April 6, 2016
“The drinking thing for me was a constant, like, ‘You cannot change. You are weak and incapable of doing what’s best for you,'” Barrymore told the outlet. “‘You keep thinking you will master this thing, and it’s getting the better of you.'”
“I probably cared so much that I was only giving to them and not taking care of myself. It was a messy, painful, excruciating walk through the fire and come back to life kind of trajectory,” she continued.
Barrymore said she went to therapy after her divorce, and quit drinking.
“It was my kids that made me feel like it’s game time,” she said to People. She threw herself into her then-new talk show, “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which “gave me something to focus on and pour myself into. It gave us something to believe in.”